Singled Out: Robbers On High Street's Electric Eye

Someone once told me that every pop song is really in a major key. "Electric Eye," I assure you, is absolutely minor. The ghoulish opening chord confirms it all. It's a C# half-diminished for all you muso-nerds, which is about as easy to play as it is to admit that you know how to play it.

It's one of the earlier ones that I wrote for our new record but one of the later ones we learned. Just came to me, like most things, walking down the street when I was nowhere close to being able to sit down and figure it out. If it wasn't for voice memos on cell phones I don't think I'd ever write another song.

The acoustic guitar strut/handclaps thing reminds me of a song off this Papas Fritas record I listened to quite a bit back in good ol' Y2k. The vocals are in octaves, which is a trick I've always admired in some Superchunk songs and I'm surprised we never did it before, considering my voice is so low and Steve's so very, very high. Though full disclosure, I was listening to Macca's Flaming Pie a lot around then (don't be a wimp, go the distance with Paul!) and there's a track, "The World Tonight," that probably sunk into my subconscious and made me do this.

We had to take care when tracking not to say "Electric Guys", though it was suggested to me that this could perhaps open up a new audience to Robbers on High Street. The trumpet player Dave called it a "crossover hit", to which Jared, the baritone player said, "crossover to what?" I'm still trying to figure that out.